More faithful MP3

[remusr]

Is there a decent mp3 decoder tool out there or is the "lossy" mp3/wma format condemned to be non-audiophile? I am ripping my Pink Floyd CD's as 320 kbps mp3's & saving to an SD card using my laptop's Windows Media Player 11. I recorded 14 CD's on one 2GB SD card so I thought it was great! But they only sound sorta "pleasant" and seemed to lack transients, clarity and deep bass when played back in my car. Confirmed it by switching back & forth to the original CD. No excitement. Dang. The car has many entertainment sources (2 SD slots, an IPod attachment, a single-slot GPS DVD/CD player as well as satellite & AM/FM radio) but NO dedicated music CD player/changer. I'd like to leave the GPS DVD in the DVD/CD player so I have GPS. Anyone have a recommendation? I think it can play back only mp3 (maybe wma) format via the SD slots.

[boputnam]

I don't have an answer specifically, but there was a damned interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal, Insane About Sound reporting on some "consumer listening tests" at the The Home Entertainment Show adjacent to CES. The tests address the long-debated Monster cable debate in some true blind A/B tests.

However, Gomes' closing remarks about .wav files is appropos, as is his definition of "audiophile":

"...an audiophile is one who will bear any burden, pay any price, to get even a tiny improvement in sound."

[jblnut]

Thanks Bo - great link !

jblnut

[Mr. Widget]

However, Gomes' closing remarks about .wav files is appropos, as is his definition of "audiophile":

"...an audiophile is one who will bear any burden, pay any price, to get even a tiny improvement in sound."

Thanks Bo... great article. I am surprised about the speaker wire, perhaps a larger sample would reduce the margin... and perhaps not.

I really don't think the iPod sounds as good as all $3K CD players, but I am not surprised that there are some $3K CD players that sound essentially the same as an iPod playing an uncompressed file. I wonder if he used a flash memory or hard drive based iPod? The flash memory iPod should be free of jitter... Meridian uses an extremely large buffer in their better players for just this reason... the entire CD is dumped into static RAM and then played back from there.

I agree that Gomes' definition of audiophiles is similar to many people's view of "audiophiles" however, I take a broader view here. Actually I call the condition where one will bear any burden etc. "audiophiliosis" and know many who are afflicted by it.


Widget

[remusr]

I am going to rip a CD into the lossless wma file format option in WMP 11 and see if my SD card player can read it. Big file sizes of 3-5x the 320 size but can fit several CD's on a 2 or 4GB SD. Will confirm if is card reader/player limitations or 320kbps mp3 format. But then again it could be WMP or my laptop...

[pos]

Is there a decent mp3 decoder tool out there or is the "lossy" mp3/wma format condemned to be non-audiophile? I am ripping my Pink Floyd CD's as 320 kbps mp3's

All MP3 decoders should do exactly the same job (DAC or implementation problems aside). The difference lays in the encoder you use, even more than in the bitrate you choose.
A 128kbps MP3 encoded using a fraunhofer codec will be much better than a 320kbps MP3 encoded with many encoders. As an example, the LAME encoder is very popular among linux users, but the MP3 it produces are.... well... disappointing at best.

my choice for music formats would be, from the smallest to the biggest :
- 128kbps wma encoded with mediaplayer
- 192kbps mp3 encoded with a good fraunhofer codec
- flac lossless files
- wav files (same quality as flac, but runs on any player)

[Mr. Widget]

my choice for music formats would be, from the smallest to the biggest :

My choice would be 192/24
Second is SACD's 1 bit DSD
Third is 96/24


oh sorry... I guess I went way off topic.


Widget

[Rolf]

Is there a decent mp3 decoder tool out there or is the "lossy"back only mp3 (maybe wma) format via the SD slots.

You don't have anything? Listen to music! You will find out that ANY compression is reducing the music.

[pos]

My choice would be 192/24
Second is SACD's 1 bit DSD
Third is 96/24


oh sorry... I guess I went way off topic.


Widget

But seriously, it would be interesting to do some comparisons between a 24bits compressed file format and a 16bit uncompressed file format.